RUTGERS UNIVERSITY The State University of New Jersey

IN MEMORY OF CHARLES MUNCH

September 26, 1891 - November 6, 1968

^Boston Symphony Orchestra

Erich Leinsdorf

Music Director

THE RUTGERS UNIVERSITY CHOIR

F. Austin Walter, Director

Erich Leinsdorf, Conducting

Soloists: SHERRILL MILNES SARAMAE ENDICH Baritone Soprano

Program Notes Copyright © by Alec Robertson

The University Gymnasium

Thursday Evening, November 21, 1968

8:30 o'clock I

"Wedding" Cantata No. 202 for Soprano J. S. Bach (1685-1750)

Aria: Weichet nur, betriibte Schatten Recitative: Die Welt wird wieder neu

Aria: Phobus eilt mit schnellen Pferden Recitative: D'rum sucht auch Amor sein Vergnugen Aria: Wenn die Friihlings liifte streichen

Recitative: Und dieses ist das Gliicke Aria: Sich iiben im Lieben

Recitative: So sei das Band der keuschen Liebe Gavotte: Sehet in Zufriedenheit

Saramae Endich, soprano Joseph Silverstein, violin Ralph Gomberg, oboe

Charles Wilson, harpsichord continuo Jules Eskin, 'cello continuo Henry Portnoi, double bass continuo Sherman Walt, bassoon continuo

Program Note:

During his period of office as court composer at Cothen, where he had no duties to perform in the Duke's chapel, Bach is said to have composed a large number of secular cantatas, but only one of these, our cantata No. 202, is preserved complete, two more being known to us from subsequent adaptations in the church cantatas.

We have, therefore, the Wedding cantata composed at Cothen in its original version. Bach was often unwilling to leave good material composed for a special occasion aside, but the dance-like character of the cantata would have prevented him from using the music subsequently in a church work. It should be said here, however, that Bach, in the manner of this time, did not recognize any sharply de- fined difference between sacred and secular music.

It is possible, or even probable, that Bach's wife, Anna Magdalena, sang the solo soprano part in this Wedding cantata. We do not know what couple the libretto was written for or its author. The charming text indicates that they were young and its poetic conceits evidently appealed to Bach. The work is scored for oboe, bassoon, strings and harpsichord and, as "table music," it would have been per- formed during the Gargantuan feast, common at these ceremonies. — INTERMISSION —

II

Ein deutsches , Op. 45 Brahms (1833-1897) Chorus: Selig sind, die da Leid tragen

Chorus: Denn alles Fleisch es ist wie Gras Baritone and chorus: Herr, lehre doch mich, dass ein Ende Chorus: Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen Soprano and chorus: Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit Baritone and chorus: Denn wir haben hie keine bleibende Statt Chorus: Selig sind die Toten

Saramae Endich, soprano Sherrill Milnes, baritone The Rutgers University Choir BOSTON SYMPHONY| ORCHESTRA ERICH LEIIySDORF, Mulic Director

NOVEMBER 1968

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH 'Wedding' cantata no. 202 for soprano 'Wei diet nur, betrubte Schatten' (Vanish, gloomy shadows)

ARIA Weichet nur, betrubte Schatten, Vanish, gloomy shadows; Frost und Winde, geht zur Ruh'! Frost and winds, be gone! Florens Lust will der Brust The pleasures of spring bring the heart Nichts als frohes Gluck verstatten, Nothing but happiness; Denn sie traget Blumen zu. For with it come the flowers.

RECITATIVE Die Welt wird wieder neu, auf Bergen The world decks itself anew; on hills und in Griinden will sich die Anmuth and dales everywhere, charm and beauty doppelt Schon verbinden, der Tag is von strive to unite; the days are no longer der Kalte frei. cold.

ARIA

Phobus eilt mit schnellen Pferden, Phoebus hastens with his speedy Durch die neugeborne Welt, horses Ja, weil sie ihm wohl gefallt Through the newborn world. Will er selbst ein Buhler werden. Because the world pleases him so, He joins in the pleasures of love. RECITATIVE D'rum sucht auch Amor sein Vergnugen, Cupid too seeks his pleasure, when wenn Purpur in die Wiesen lacht, wenn the meadows are covered with laughing Florens Pracht sich herrlich macht, und purple, when the flowers bloom wenn in seinem Reich, den schonen magnificent. Like flowers, ardent hearts Blumen gleich, auch Herzen feurig are the conquerors in Cupid's kingdom. siegen.

ARIA Wenn die Fruhlingslufte streichen When the spring breezes blow Und durch bunte Felder weh'n, And fan the colorful fields, Pflegt auch Amor auszuschleichen Then Cupid steals out Urn nach seinem Schmuck zu seh'n To display his magic charm, Welcher, glaubt man, dieser ist: The charm, so we believe, Dass ein Herz das andre kiisst. To make one lover kiss another.

RECITATIVE

Und dieses ist das Glucke: dass durch And this is happiness: that by a lucky ein hohes Gunstgeschicke zwei Seelen chance, two souls find Cupid's charm, einen Schmuck erlanget, an dem viel on which sparkle the jewels of Heil und Segen pranget. happiness and fortune. ARIA Sich iiben im lieben, in Scherzen sich To dally in love, to bind two hearts herzen together 1st besser als Florens vergangliche Lust Is better than the fleeting pleasure the Hier quellen die Wellen, hier lachen flowers bring. und wachen Here rise the springs, here the palm Die siegenden Palmen auf Lippen und branches Brust. Nod merrily and watch over united lips and breasts. RECITATIVE

So sei das Band der keuschen Liebe, So, blessed pair, may the bonds of verlobte Zwei, vom Unbestand des purest love keep you free from the Wechsels frei. Kein jaher Fall, noch uncertainties of fate. May no ill wind Donnerknall erschrecke die verliebten nor thunderbolt disturb your tender Triebe! devotion. GAVOTTE

Sehet in Zufriedenheit May fortune smile Tausend helle Wohlfahrtstage, And bring you everlasting happiness, Dass bald bei der Folgezeit And may your love blossom Eure Liebe Blumen trage. Through the passing years.

Translation by Andrew Raeburn

JOHANNES BRAHMS Ein deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem) op. 45

CHORUS 1 Selig sind, die da Leid tragen, Blessed are they that mourn; denn sie sollen getrostet werden. for they shall be comforted.

Matthew 5 :4 I Die mit Tranen, saen They that sow in tears werden mit Freuden ernten. shall reap in joy. Sie gehen hin und weinen, He that goeth forth and weepeth, und tragen edlen Samen, bearing precious seed, und kommen mit Freuden shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, und bringen ihre Garben. bringing his sheaves with him. Psalms 125:5- CHORUS

Denn alles Fleisch es ist wie Gras For all flesh is as grass, und alle Herrlichkeit des Menschen and all the glory of man wie des Grases Blumen. as the flower of grass. Das Gras ist verdorret The grass withereth und die Blume abgefallen. and the flower thereof falleth away.

I Peter 1:24 So seid nun geduldig, lieben Briider, Be patient therefore, brethren, bis auf die Zukunft des Herrn. unto the coming of the Lord. Siehe ein Ackermann wartet Behold the husbandman waiteth auf die kdstliche Frucht der Erde for the precious fruit of the earth, und ist geduldig dariiber, and hath long patience for it, bis er empfahe until he receive den Morgenregen und Abendregen. the early and latter rain. James 5:7 CHARLES MUNCH September 26 1891 - November 6 1968

Charles Munch, Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orches- tra from 1949 to 1962, died

peacefully in his sleep in the early morning of November 6 1968 at Richmond, Virginia. He had conducted the Orchestre de , of which he was conduc-

tor and music director, in a con- cert at Raleigh, North Carolina,

two days earlier.

Born in Strasbourg, he came from a distinguished musical

family. His father was his first violin teacher and with his three

brothers and two sisters he spent much time during his childhood making music. He contemplated a medical career, and went at the age of twenty-one to study in Paris. But he was soon devoting his time to the violin. After service in the first world war, he resumed his career as a student of Carl Flesch in Berlin and as concertmaster of the Strasbourg Orchestra. He moved to Leipzig, where he spent eight years in the first desk of the violins in the Gewandhaus Orchestra under Wilhelm Furtwangler and Bruno Walter.

In 1932 Charles Munch settled in Paris, and began his conducting career. He founded the Orchestre Symphonique de Paris and conducted the Lamoureux Concerts. Engagements as guest conductor in other cities soon followed. In 1937 he became conductor of the Paris Con- servatory Orchestra. His first visit to the United States was in 1946; he conducted the Boston Symphony on December 27 and in the fol- lowing month made the first of his many appearances with the .

In the spring of 1948 Charles Munch was engaged to succeed Serge Koussevitzky as Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, his tenure to begin with the 1949-50 season. Meanwhile, in the autumn of 1948, he toured throughout the United States with the Orchestre National de la Radiodiffusion Franchise, of which he was conductor. :

Ich will euch trosten, As one whom his mother comforteth, wie einen seine Mutter trostet. so will I comfort you. Isaiah 66:13

Sehet mich an: ich habe Behold with your eyes/ eine kleine Zeit Muhe und Arbeit how that I laboured but a little, gehabt und habe grossen Trost funden. and found for myself much rest. Ecclesiastes 51 :27

BARITONE AND CHORUS

Denn wir haben hie keine bleibende For here have we no continuing city, Statt, sondern die zukunftige suchen wir. but we seek one to come. Hebrews 13:14

Siehe, ich sage euch ein Geheimnis. Behold, I shew you a mystery; Wir werden nicht alle entschlafen, we shall not all sleep, wir werden aber alle verwandelt but we shall all be changed, werden; und dasselbige plotzlich in einem in a moment, in the twinkling of an Augenblick eye, zu der Zeit der letzten Posaune. at the last trump: Denn es wird die Posaune schallen for the trumpet shall sound, und die Toten werden auferstehen and the dead shall be raised unverweslich, incorruptible, und wir werden verwandelt werden. and we shall be changed. Dann wird erfullet werden Then shall be brought to pass das Wort, das geschrieben steht: the saying that is written, Der Tod ist verschlungen in den Sieg. Death is swallowed up in victory. Tod, wo ist dein Stachel? O death, where is thy sting? Holle, wo ist dein Sieg? O grave, where is thy victory?

I Corinthians 15:51-2, 54-5

Herr, du bist wurdig Thou art worthy, O Lord, zu nehmen Preis und Ehre und Kraft, to receive glory and honour and power: denn du hast alle Dinge erschaffen, for thou hast created all things, und durch deinen Willen and for thy pleasure haben sie das Wesen und sind they are and were created. geschaffen. Revelation 4:11

CHORUS

Selig sind die Toten, Blessed are the dead die in dem Herren sterben, von nun which die in the Lord from an. henceforth Ja, der Geist spricht, Yea, saith the Spirit, dass sie ruhen von ihrer Arbeit; that they may rest from their labours; denn ihre Werke folgen ihnen nach. and their works do follow them. Revelation 14:13 Aber des Herrn Wort bleibet in But the word of the Lord endureth for Ewigkeit. ever. I Peter 1:25

Die Erloseten des Herrn werden And the ransomed of the Lord shall wiederkommen, return, und gen Zion kommen mit Jauchzen; and come to Zion with songs Freude, ewige Freude wird uber ihrem and everlasting joy upon their heads: Haupte sein; Freude und Wonne werden sie they shall obtain joy and gladness, ergreifen, und Schmerz und Seufzen wird weg and sorrow and sighing shall flee miissen. away. Isaiah 35:10

BARITONE AND CHORUS Herr, lehre doch mich, dass ein Ende Lord, make me to know mine end, mit mir haben muss, und mein Leben and the measure of my days, what it is; ein Ziel hat, und ich davon muss. that I may know how frail I am. Siehe, meine Tage sind einer Behold thou hast made my days as an Handbreit vor dir, handbreadth; und mein Leben ist wie nichts vor dir. and mine age is as nothing before thee: Ach, wie gar nichts sind alle verily every man at his best state Menschen, die doch so sicher leben. is altogether vanity. Sie gehen daher wie ein Schemen, Surely every man walketh in a vain shew: und machen ihnen viel vergebliche surely they are disquieted in vain: Unruhe; sie sammeln und wissen nicht, he heapeth up riches, wer es kriegen wird. and knoweth not who shall gather them.

Nun Herr, wes soil ich mich trosten? And now, Lord, what wait I for? Ich hoffe auf dich. my hope is in thee. Psalms 39:4-7

Der Gerechten Seelen But the souls of the righteous sind in Gottes Hand are in the hand of God, und keine Qual ruhret sie an. and there shall no torment touch them. Wisdom of Solomon 3:1

CHORUS

Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen, How amiable are thy tabernacles, Herr Zebaoth! O Lord of hostsl Meine Seele verlanget und sehnet sich My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth nach den Vorhofen des Herrn; for the courts of the Lord: mein Leib und Seele freuen sich my heart and my flesh crieth out in dem lebendigen Gott. for the living God. Wohl denen, die in deinem Hause Blessed are they that dwell in thy wohnen, house: die loben dich immerdar! they will be still praising thee. Psalms 84:1-2,4

SOPRANO AND CHORUS Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit; And ye now therefore have sorrow: aber ich will euch wieder sehen but I will see you again, und euer Herz soil sich freuen, and your heart shall rejoice, und eure Freude soil niemand von and your joy no man taketh from you. euch nehmen. John 16:22 During his years with the Boston Symphony, Charles Munch led the

its first Orchestra on tour of Europe, in May 1952, which opened in

Paris, and included his birthplace Strasbourg. In the spring of the fol- lowing year he and the Orchestra toured to the West Coast. The second European tour, in 1956, took the Orchestra to Moscow and Leningrad; this was the first visit of a western orchestra to the USSR. Four years

later Charles Munch introduced the Orchestra to Japan and other Far Eastern countries.

After his retirement from the Boston Symphony in 1962 he returned each season as one of the Orchestra's guest conductors. During 1967

he was appointed conductor of the newly founded Orchestre de Paris,!

the first French orchestra to be fully subsidized by the State, which

made its debut at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees on November 14 of !

last year. The concert was by all accounts a great occasion, and already

during the last twelve months the Orchestra's high standard of playing

under Charles Munch had begun to galvanize 's concert life.

In 1933 Charles Munch married Genevieve Maury, a distinguished

author and translator. Mme Munch died in 1956. He was made a

Commander in the Legion of Honor by the French government in

1945. In the summer of 1967 he became a Grand Officer in the Order, an honor awarded to only a very small number of distinguished public

figures. During his last years Charles Munch lived in a beautiful eigh- teenth century house near Versailles.

On October 23 last he led a concert by the Orchestre de Paris in Symphony Hall, Boston, when he conducted Debussy's La mer, Medea's meditation and dance of vengeance by Samuel Barber and the Sym-

phony no. 1 in C minor of Brahms.

Charles Munch was a man who instilled love and loyalty in all the people who shared his devotion to music, players and audiences alike.

His dedication is perhaps best summed up in his own words: 'Music is

the art of expressing the inexpressible. It rises far above what words can

mean or the intelligence define. Its domain is the imponderable and impalpable land of the unconscious. Man's right to speak this language

is for me the most precious gift that heaven has bestowed on us/ —

Program Note:

Brahms completed the Requiem in 1866, except for the fifth movement, which years later. The first performance he composed two of the six movements was given Friday, April 10, 1868, Brahms in Bremen on Good himself conducting. The Ora- conducted torio Society of New York, by Leopold Damrosch, gave the United States premiere on March 15, 1877. The first performance by the Boston Symphony Orches- Pension concert tra was given at a Fund on March 28, 1926, under the direction of Serge Koussevitsky. The instrumentation: 2 flutes and piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets,

2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones and tuba, timpani, harp and strings.

An incautious friend once questioned Brahms as to the nature of his religious beliefs and received an abrupt answer which precluded any further conversation on the topic. "I have my faith," he said. We know from Max Kalbeck, one of Brahms' greatest champions, and the author of a four-volume biography of the composer (1904-1914), that "Nothing made him angrier than to be taken for an orthodox church composer on account of his sacred compositions."

The reference is to the motets with German words, and to the "Three Sacred Choruses" with Latin words familiar in the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church. Brahms composed these, and many others, all for unaccompanied voices, for his Hamburg Ladies Choir (disbanded in 1858 when he moved to Vienna) and for the Vienna Philharmonic Society's Chorus, not for church use.

Brahms presumably chose to call his greatest choral work A German Requiem to disassociate it from the Latin Requiem Mass and make it clear that the text came from the Lutheran Bible. Schiitz's title Musi\alisches Exequien associates his work with an actual burial service but Brahms' came to be associated with, and in part inspired by, the deaths of Schumann in 1856 and of his own mother in 1861. The second number, "Behold all flesh is but as grass," had its origin in a slow movement for an abortive symphony begun at the time of the Schumann tragedy, of which material from the first movement was used up in the corresponding movement of the D Minor Piano Concerto, and in 1861 he had already arranged the text of four movements of what was turning out to be a cantata. By 1866 he had added two more movements, and last of all—and surely with special thought of his mother came the lovely soprano solo, with chorus, "Now hath man sorrow but yet I shall again behold you and fill your heart with rejoicing," to which the chorus respond

"Yea, I will give you comfort as one whom his mother comforts."

Brahms was a life-long student of Luther's Bible and Florence May, his friend, pupil, and first English biographer, tells us "the text culled from various books of the Old and New Testaments and the Apocrypha have been chosen ... as parts of the people's book of Luther's Bible, the accepted representative to Protestant nations of the highest aspirations of man, and have been arranged so as to present the ascend- ing ideas of sorrow consoled, doubt overcome, death vanquished." Brahms does not pray once, let alone twice, for the dead.

Brahms' point of view, in part, could be that of one who looks back from death to life, and there finds consolation. This is the spirit of the great funeral speech upon those who have fallen in war which Thucydides puts into the mouth of Pericles.

"I do not now commiserate the parents of the dead who stand here; I would rather comfort them. You know that your life has been passed amid manifold vicis- situdes; and that they may be deemed fortunate who have gained most honour, whether an honourable death like theirs, or an honourable sorrow like yours, and whose days have been so ordered that the term of their happiness is likewise the term last long, and be of their life . . . remember that your life of sorrow will not comforted by the Glory of those who are gone." I little As G. Lowes-Dickenson says in his gem of a book The Gree\ View oi Life (Methuen, 1896), "This represents perhaps what we call the typical attitude of the Greek. To seek consolation for death, if anywhere, then in life, and in life not as it might be imagined beyond the grave, but as it had been and would be lived on earth. ... It is the spirit," Mr. Dickenson adds, "that Goethe noted as inspiring the sepulchral monuments of Athens."

The Requiem is not an oratorio, it is a choral symphony. Brahms had only once before, and not altogether successfully, in the D Minor Piano Concerto, scored for full orchestra and now he used even larger forces, adding three trombones and tuba to the brass section, a third drum and a harp to the percussion, and paying far greater attention to tone color. This is immediately apparent in the opening move- ment from which clarinets, all bright tones—trumpets and violins—are excluded, for the music is in mourning.

Brahms quotes the words of Christ twice, "Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted" (Matthew 5:4, the third of the Beatitudes, in the first movement of the work) and "Now hath man sorrow, but yet I shall again behold you and fill your heart with such rejoicing as no man taketh from you" (John 16:22) at the start of the fifth and last composed movement.

Twenty-eight years after the first complete performance of the Requiem, in

1868, Brahms composed the Four Serious Songs, under the shadow of a mortal ill- ness. This wonderful work became his farewell to music and to the world.

In the last of these songs he turned from the dark sayings of Ecclesiastes to the radiant words of St. Paul in the thirteenth chapter of his First Epistle to the Cor- inthians, ending with "And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the great- est of these is love" setting the words to a great phrase that soars heavenwards.

"I have my faith," he had said, and perhaps we may find in St. Paul's words his personal expression of it, according to his own interpretation. Brahms died on

April 3, 1897, and the Serious Songs were sung, we are told, in almost all the towns of Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Holland as if a requiem for the master.

(The greater part of Alec Robertson's note on Brahms appears in his bock Requiem, published in England by Cassell and in the United States by Praeger.)

Thomas D. Perry, Jr., Manager

Baldwin Piano RCA Records

Sherrill Milnes records for RCA Records

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